A Reckless Desire (5 page)

His traveling coach was an older model that had originally belonged to his father, refurbished and improved but still grand enough in size for a full ducal party. Rivers settled comfortably in one corner, as was his usual habit, while Lucia sat primly on the opposite seat, square in the middle of the wide tufted bench. She was holding that infernal box again, this time balanced on her knees with her hands folded on top of it.

At least she'd tucked her kerchief back into place over those distracting breasts, so he could think other, more useful thoughts. It would have been a damnably long journey if she hadn't.

“Put the trunk at your feet,” he said, no longer a suggestion and closer to an order. “I promise you I have no interest in stealing it or its contents.”

“No, my lord.” With a sigh that could have been from relief or doubt (he didn't care to know which), she carefully set the trunk beside her feet on the floor of the carriage, shooing Spot away when he approached for an exploratory sniff.

“Spot won't hurt it,” Rivers said. “On the contrary. He's an excellent guard dog.”

“ ‘Spot'?” She looked up at him over the dog's head, her voice ripe with amusement. “How long did it take you to think of that, my lord?”

“He came to me with the name,” Rivers said defensively. “He was a gift from my brother, and my niece had already named him.”

“As you say, my lord,” she said, grinning.

“I had no choice in the matter,” he said, striving to explain. “If I'd changed the name to something more suitable, then my niece would have been terribly disappointed. She's only three, you see. She would not have understood.”

“Yes, my lord.” Her smile softened. No doubt she was thinking him a weak-hearted fool for bowing to the whims of a three-year-old—not that her opinion should matter. Not at all. She was here to help him win a wager, nothing more. He couldn't forget that. Resolutely composing himself, he looked down on the round, flat brim of her straw hat as she bent over the dog.

At least she didn't venture her opinions aloud, concentrating instead on rubbing Spot's boney forehead until he closed his eyes and groaned with happiness.

“Better to call him Punto, my lord,” she said, her face still hidden by the hat. “Isn't that so, Punto?”

“ ‘Punto'?” repeated Rivers indignantly. Spot might be unimaginative, but at least it wasn't thumpingly awkward and foreign. And what right did she have to rename his dog?
“Punto?”

“Punto,” she said again, decisively. “It's Italian for Spot, my lord.”

“I know that,” he said. “But that's not his name.”

“Oh, but I can tell he's a clever boy, my lord.” She patted the seat beside her. “He'll know it. Up, up, Punto! Here, here!”

Eagerly the dog scrambled up onto the leather cushion, swaying stiff-legged with the carriage's motion as he leaned against her shoulder.

Rivers stared, aghast. It was bad enough for her to invent another name for his dog, but then to have the audacity to invite the beast to jump onto the carriage seat—an indulgence no canine was ever permitted in any Fitzroy coach, by the unimpeachable decree of various Fitzroy wives—that was beyond bearing.

“Down, Spot,” he ordered sharply. “Damnation,
down
!”

With a fretful little whimper and his head hanging in shame, Spot slid from the seat to the floor and lay guiltily across the toes of Rivers's booted feet, his rightful place.

Lucia, however, shared none of Spot's remorse. “How could you do that to him, my lord? Poor Punto! I didn't mind him sitting beside me.”

“But I did,” Rivers said sternly. “Once we are in the country, it is Spot's habit to run alongside the carriage, on the road and beside it, and root through whatever foulness he pleases. At some point in our journey, he'll return to ride with us, and I've no wish for him to drag muck, dust, and the scraps of dead squirrels onto the cushions. He knows he shouldn't do it, and you should, too.”

She lowered her chin a fraction, gazing up from beneath the curving straw brim of her hat. It wasn't coquettish, either. It was out-and-out rebellious.

“That is very
tidy
of you, my lord,” she said. “But I cannot help but feel pity for poor Punto, to be kept not only from these soft cushions, but also from his master's bed, the favored place of every other English dog.”

“His name is Spot, not Punto,” Rivers insisted, his exasperation growing. “And he is indeed permitted to lie on my bed at night. Once we arrive at the Lodge, the stable boys will wash him, and make him presentable for the house.”

She looked down at the dog. “He would appear presentable enough now, my lord.”

“Lucia, I do not wish the dog on the carriage seat,” he said crossly, his temper finally fraying. “You may not care if Spot sits beside you with dirty paws, but I can assure you that the ladies who sit on these seats do.”

Too late he realized how pointedly that simple statement had excluded her as not being a lady. She understood. How could she not? Her cheeks flushed and her shoulders drew together, and as he watched, she seemed to shrink into herself, shuttering that rebellion tightly inside.

“Forgive me, my lord,” she said, her expression guarded and her voice reduced to the sad little whisper of perfect servitude. “I did not mean to give offense.”

This was how she had been with Magdalena, and the reason she'd always escaped his notice before this week. Frowning, he studied her closely, wishing she hadn't retreated from him like this. Her head was bowed, her hands meekly folded in her lap, her eyes downcast and revealing nothing. He remembered how she'd said she'd been forced to act as a servant for her own family, how she'd been made to feel worthless by her uncle and the others because she couldn't dance.

But he couldn't deny that his unthinking comment just now had accomplished much the same thing. He felt uncomfortably as if he should apologize for offending her, something that he knew he'd no obligation to do. He'd simply made his own wishes rightly known, that was all. He
was
the master here, a gentleman, and the son of a duke, while she was his social inferior in every way. In this carriage, his word should be law, especially if he was to transform her as he hoped.

So why, then, did that apology still sit stuck in his throat, unspoken yet unable to be swallowed?

He sighed irritably, eager for a distraction from this…this uneasiness. He reached into the leather bag of books on the seat beside him, and pulled out a slender, elegantly bound edition of Shakespeare's
Hamlet.
He slid his thumb beside the slip of paper that marked the page with the passage he'd chosen last night, a soliloquy spoken by Ophelia. He intended it as Lucia's first test, so that he might judge her memory, her reading skills, and her feeling for the magnificent words that were such a staple of the theater.

Yet as he glanced over the short passage again, he wondered whether he'd been too ambitious. What seemed an easy task to him might prove too difficult for her, and discourage her from their experiment before it had fairly begun.

Still, better to know now than later, and smoothing the pages open, he held the book out to Lucia.

“Here,” he said, pointing to the beginning of the passage. “This will be your first lesson. Read and memorize the twelve lines beginning with
O, what a noble mind is here o'erthrown.
Take as long as you require, and when you are ready, I'll ask you to recite the passage to me.”

Her expression did not change as she took the book.

“Very well, my lord,” she said in the well-practiced drone of every servant. “Will that be all?”

He nodded, perversely longing for the return of the girl who'd challenged him about Spot. “Do you have any questions for me?”

“No, my lord,” she said. “I'm to read these twelve lines, learn them by rote, and then speak them back to you.”

“Exactly,” he said, nodding. “And the word is pronounced ‘sp-EE-k,' not ‘sp-AA-k.' We shall have to work a great deal on your vowels to make them acceptable.”

Her brows rose. “My vowels, my lord?”

“Your vowels,” he repeated. “The letters
a, e, i, o,
and
u.
If you are to play queens and noblewomen, you must learn to pronounce them as such ladies would, and not like—well, not like a dresser from Drury Lane. You can hear the difference, can't you?”

She nodded. “Sp-EEEEEE-k.”

“Well, yes,” he said. “Though you needn't draw it out as if you'd seen a mouse.”

“Sp-EE-k,” she said proudly. “This is how I must sp-EE-k if I wish to sound like a lady.”

“Yes,” he said. Of course she didn't sound like a lady at all, but this was only the first day, and he knew this would take time—a great deal of time, apparently. “Now attend to the passage, and pray tell me when you are done.”

He took up another book, this one featuring the witty reflections of a French philosopher, opened it, and set himself to reading. He resolved not to look up at her until either he'd finished the chapter or she declared herself ready to recite the passage. She said nothing and neither did he as the carriage traveled through the outskirts of London and into the countryside.

Ordinarily the French philosopher's ideas amused Rivers, but today he found them slow going indeed, and instead his thoughts kept returning again and again to the young woman across from him. How was she faring with her first assignment? The way she'd responded, he'd felt more as if he'd asked her to dust the front parlor than to memorize Shakespeare, but at least she'd find the Shakespeare a more pleasant task.

Or at least he hoped she would. Damnation, what if she didn't care for Shakespeare? He hadn't considered that possibility until now. She was being quiet.

Very
quiet.

But that could be a good sign as well, the mark of a diligent scholar, and with pleasure he imagined her applying herself to the passage, the book clutched in her small hands, her brows drawn solemnly together, and her mouth pursed as she read the words over and over to learn them.

It took all his will not to sneak a furtive glance at her over the edge of his book, and when at last he reached his own designated finishing line at the end of the chapter, he made a contented little grunt of anticipation, closed the book, and finally raised his gaze to look at Lucia.

The slender volume with the play lay closed on the seat beside her. Her head was tipped back against the leather squabs, her straw hat knocked askew and the narrow ribbon that had held it in place half untied. Her hands were once again clasped in her lap, but her lips were slightly parted and her eyes were closed, her thick dark lashes feathering over her cheeks.

She was sound asleep.

Oh, it was going to be a long,
long
six weeks.

“
Lucia
,”
the man's voice said from a great and echoing distance in her dream. “Lucia, it's time you woke. Past time, really.”

She frowned, not willing to give up her rather splendid dream just yet, a dream that involved eating clotted cream and strawberries while sitting on a bench in Hyde Park beside a handsome prince with a crown studded with strawberry-sized rubies. The prince's face was a bit hazy, but in the way of dreams she was still certain he was handsome, and wonderfully attentive to her, offering her more berries from a large silver bowl.

“For God's sake, Lucia,” the man's voice said again, more irritably this time. “I can't leave you here in the carriage. You must wake.”

The bowl full of ripe strawberries faded away like mist, and with it the handsome prince. Reluctantly she dragged her eyes open, squinting a bit at the late-afternoon light that was slanting directly into her eyes. In the place of the prince was Lord Rivers, while his footmen were also peering at her curiously through the open carriage door.

“Finally,” Rivers said, his voice rumbling ominously. “I was beginning to believe you'd completely forsaken me for Morpheus.”

“Forgive me, my lord,” Lucia said, quickly sitting upright and shoving her hat back from her forehead. With the sun behind his lordship, she couldn't see his face well enough to judge his humor, but it was hardly a good omen for him to be speaking of her in connection with some unknown man named Morpheus. “I, ah, I must have fallen asleep.”

“Indeed,” he said drily. “You fell asleep before we'd reached the Holborn gate, and you've stayed asleep ever since, until this very moment.”

She looked at him uncertainly, her heart racing, not quite sure how to proceed. “How long, my lord?”

“Four hours,” he said, “and twelve minutes.”

Madre di Dio,
four
hours
! She'd no doubt that he'd kept track of every minute with that enormous gold watch of his, too.

Was she supposed to have stayed awake for the entire journey? Is that how she'd erred? He'd been reading and paying her little attention, but perhaps he'd expected her to converse with him to pass the time. Did he expect an apology now? She'd found that apologies usually corrected most any error, whether they were merited or not.

“Forgive me, my lord,” she murmured. She slipped from the seat to curtsey awkwardly in the carriage's narrow foot space, her skirts brushing against his legs in a way that was uncomfortably intimate. “I did not intend to disturb you by sleeping.”

“Well, you didn't,” he said. She could see his face now, disgruntled in spite of his efforts to remain impassive. “But I had set you a task—a very small task indeed—to learn a passage for me. Instead you chose to sleep.”

“But I
did
learn it!” she protested. “Forgive me, my lord, but I know it perfectly!
Perfettamente!
”

He made a skeptical, gruff sound in his throat that as much as declared that he didn't believe her.